Lunching Around Tirana

Parking lots full of cars, tables groaning with meat, mugs of beer (and highballs of raki!), lamb on the spit, trout darting in ponds, postprandial diners almost snoring in their seats... Tirana is a great place to eat, but you can't get any better than what's around the capital. On the weekends, if you want to lunch like the locals, you head out of town. Anyone with the money and the transport makes their way out into the countryside, into strange little worlds of pastoral fancy and gimmicky eateries.
Not far from the city limits, on a stretch of scenic road that leads up into the Kruja foothills, a string of "country" restaurants tempt Tirana's wheeled set. Signs for places like "Ura e Lizes" (Liza's Bridge) and "Iliria" point to wooded retreats where empty swimming pools and grubby plastic tables are arranged in the shade. The place we ate is called "Natyra e Qete," which, unsurprisingly, means "nature and quiet." With grandiose brick towers and a large playground, it might have been better named "theme-park castletown."
The promise these places make is carnivorous, the diners are there for meat - ribs, liver, lamb's head, paving stone steaks, stuffed tripe - with maybe a side of potatoes and a pitcher of red wine. Patrons arrive in their Sunday or Saturday finery, usually in family groups, sometimes as boisterous bunches of men. They smoke and eat and sit for hours, the dim, cavernous halls giving them some sense of nature, no doubt, that they simply can't find in town. Every weekend feels like a special occasion.
At Natyra e Qete, we ate more modestly than most. A table near us was served two enormous trays of beef ribs, which the diners set about dismantling with greasy hands and sharp teeth. Another table received something akin to a stack of steaks, like a small burial mound constructed of meat. Rebecca had frog legs (a pondful, approximately), which arrived battered and fried but still delicious. I had "baked goat," which was very tender and toothsome - as you can see, there was nothing but the kid on the plate.

After the last raki of lunch has been finished, the idea is to drive tipsily up the road towards Elbasani - a twisting and mountainous route with few guardrails and fatal drops. The views are spectacular. Here, it really is the countryside.
In another direction (upwards this time), one can find another slew of weekend eateries. The restaurants on Mount Dajti - which soars, rocky and immense, above Tirana's skyline - are of much the same type as the ones on the Elbasani road, but they have much better views and the added bonus of a cable car ride. Servicing a national park on a high plateau, the lift up really does feel like an escape from Tirana.
At the bottom station of the cable car we were sold tickets and handed a brochure for the gondola company's own restaurant, located in the unsightly cylinder called "Tower." At the top, (after a fifteen minute ascent), we were met by a man selling pony rides - a youngish woman sat unhappily (shrieking, actually) on the rental steed while her friends took pictures. Rows of drivers and vans waited to whisk customers to their woodland tables. These men work for individual establishments, so it's best to know which one you'd like to go to beforehand, as the competition among them can be overwhelming.

Our driver maneuvered carefully enough along the top of a long cliff, where the more scenic restaurants are arranged. The day was fine, but the peacefulness of the park was somewhat offset by the aggressive techno music our young chauffeur played for us.
We ate our Sunday lunch at Gurra e Përrisë, which has a trout farm on the premises but still seems to be geared towards redder flesh. Typically, Tirana diners eat on the late side - we arrived at one, but it wasn't until about three o'clock, when we left, that the restaurant began to fill up. A fire roared beside red draperies and plushly set tables. The waiters wore vests and ties. The tablecloths were heavily starched and cigarette burned.

(A note: I should mention that smoking is actually prohibited in Albanian restaurants, but the law is completely disregarded by everyone over the age of 16.)
We ordered trout, which came admirably cooked and were filleted at our table by two men who concentrated very hard but seemed unused to the work. My broccoli soup was mostly cream, but was actually quite good.

For two large trout, soups, a large salad, grilled vegetables, beer, wine, a free car ride, formal service and terrific views, the price was about thirty-five dollars, with a heftier tip than what's normal in Albania.
We walked back to the gondola, passing men in suits and women in heels, all of us moving slowly in the spring sunshine. In a mostly atheist country it's a kind of ritual, this weekend lunching, playing a part in the social calendar that otherwise might be filled at church or the mosque. The idea is to leave the city, perhaps, for a carefully curated "natural" experience - one that can be enjoyed mostly by sitting down. It's relaxation. It's reveling in the ownership of a car or the technology of a ski lift.

The ride down the mountain is precipitously steep and blissfully quiet. A few thin, high waterfalls cascade down the cliffs nearby, their watery crashing plays wonderfully through the open window. The city is colorful and blocky below.

Up in the Albanian Highlands

We'd been warned there would be snow. When we arrived in Valbonë, we thought for sure that the ground was covered in it. White spread out before us. But as the furgon drove over to the door of our homestay, its tires created a sound more akin to a crescendoing bag of Jiffy Pop than the squeak and crunch of snow. These white stones cover a good deal of Valbonë valley, brought down from the mountains by the river after which it is all named.  In 48 hours, these river stones would find themselves in a familiar place, back beneath the rush of water.  Two days of heavy downpour carved a labyrinth of puddles and streams so large you'd think they were always there.
In fact, we woke up to find that our homestay had earned a protective moat overnight.  It had taken us 11 hours to reach Valbonë, via three furgons and one amazing ferry, and now a rain-river threatened to keep us from exploring it.  The only choice was to throw the biggest stones we could find into some shallow sections in an attempt to create a footbridge.  After too many kerplunked under the surface of the deepening water, we figured we were stuck.  But our host mother came to our rescue with a pair of galoshes. Embarrassingly, I wound up sending one of the boots down the river in a failed attempt to throw them back across to her, and she jumped in to catch it. Our feet were kept dry, but she was now drenched up to the calves. I reddened, she laughed. In Valbonë, leaving your house to find that a body of water now stands in the way of leaving your property is simply comedic.  
These are the mountains of Albania, where isolation is a part of life. Merlin and I joke that nearing two full years of travel, we aren't satisfied unless we've been to the most remote part of each country. In Georgia, that took us to Mestia. In Azerbaijan, extraordinary Xinaliq. Albania's north is full of villages that fit the bill and Valbonë, along with Theth, have become destinations for travelers who like going off(off-off) the beaten track. Summertime brings hikers from around the world and daytrippers from neighboring Kosovo. Teenagers who live in the nearby hub of Bajram Curri most of the year to attend high school - commuting every day isn't really an option - come home. They work as waiters and hiking guides for their family's business - half the houses become "hotel familiars" with restaurants and rooms for rent.
We weren't the first visitors of the year for our host family, but it is still well before their on season.  They are hoping to complete a new floor on their house, with wraparound balcony, before the tourist crowd begins to stream in.  Full all last summer, they are in need of new rooms.  Valbonë in the summer must be a far cry from the sleepy, rain-soaked place we found. Where, for two full hours of walking along the main road, we didn't see a single car.  This has been the poorest and most isolated region in Albania throughout most of its history and while tourism is beginning to help things a little, life remains mostly the same.  There weren't any cars parked alongside houses and for a month every winter, people are still completely confined to their houses because of the snow. Valbonë is a recognized National Park, which keeps it blissfully free from the litter that plagues most of Albania.  It really feels more like a protected stretch of nature than a cohesive village, with no discernible center, minimarket, post, etc.  The big, pink schoolhouse stands alone, aside from a trio of leftover bunkers half submerged into a hill. In a lot of ways, the Bajram Curri-Valbonë furgon acts as the nucleus of the town. Twice a day, the van makes its way across town. Down to Bajram Curri at 7am, back up at 3pm sharp. In the hours between, the driver runs the village's errands, armed with shopping lists and a handful of things that need to be returned or repaired. We were delivered to our host family along with a quarter chicken and tomatoes.
When we could rouse ourselves from the warm comfort of our room, we explored Valbonë under borrowed umbrellas. Unable to take full advantage of the hiking trails, we simply walked. The newly built museum and tourist center is currently empty and we weren't exactly sure what we would stumble across. As wet as it was, most people stayed in. It was just us and the constant sound of rushing water- from the heavy grey clouds above, from the waterfalls that ran down the mountains on all sides, from the impossibly blue Valbona river at our feet. Just when we thought the bell-wearing mare who leaped past and this salamander that sauntered by would be the only life we'd see, a siren call of chimney smoke brought us into a "hotel familiar/restaurant/bar." Inside, a pair of young men were waiting out the rain with a game of cards and a table of eight were enjoying a marathon lunch. Salads, yogurt with spicy pepper mixed in, fried potatoes, soup and a casserole of macaroni and lamb. When there was a lull in the delivery of courses, they passed around a traditional çifteli and each took a turn plucking at and strumming its strings.
Of course, we also had a family to come home to. And the warmth of the fires they built for us. The matriarch, whose galosh I'd sent a'floating, could light a fire with such ease that I swear she was telekinetic. The patriarch installed this wood stove right in our room, making it look downright tiny as he carried it in. He was a statuesque man with a low, smoker's voice that rattled and boomed. His broad, handsome face was sectioned off in three equal parts like an unfolded letter by one long, thick eyebrow and a long, thick mustache. He reminded me of the heroes' busts set up all around Tirana.

In front of the house sat these picturesque remains of the house he grew up in. With its doorway framing the gorgeous Dinaric Alps it seemed to smile over the ever-growing new home like the portrait of an ancestor hung above a mantle. In the barn next to it, we were shown the goats, who tumbled out of their holding pen, climbing on top of each other to exit like it was the L train at rush hour. Usually, they were up on the steep hill behind their house with the young son of the household. He and his mom screamed conversations we couldn't understand, in parent-child tones that sounded all too familiar. Some things are the same the world over.

The Beautiful Lake Komani Ferry

On a grey, cold early morning in Tirana, we boarded a minibus headed north for Lake Komani. A man got on a few minutes later with three sacks of corn and a shotgun. Hours later, in the tiny cabin of the Dragoba, he took the gun out of its case and began passing it around. His friends and neighbors admired it and someone told a joke. Outside, high cliffs passed by in the mist. This was one of the strangest and most beautiful boat rides one can imagine.
There are two ferries that ply the long, sinuous waters of Lake Komani. The more commonly-run boat is a conventional, small car ferry. The Dragoba, which we took, is an old bus with a hull welded around it. The seats were threadbare, the doors clanged open unexpectedly. A deep, slow, diesel note grumbled from the engine. Two young men were in charge - they looked as though they might be brothers. The captain piloted the boat quietly, surrounded by a chatty group of friends. The first mate collected money and made people laugh – he wore red pants, a fuchsia shirt and pink sweater. Both were lithe and tall, with ready smiles and the friendly nature of Albanian mountain men.

Lake Komani is a dammed lake, running some forty kilometers through the heart of the Dinaric alps. It’s not the easiest way to get to the northern towns, but is definitely the most scenic and the best route that doesn’t lead through Kosovo.

Our “furgon” (minibus, marshrutka) took us up to the top of the dam, some hour away from the nearest town, and dropped us off at the south-western landing. Here - on a patch of cement at the end of a tunnel, surrounded on all sides by cliff and water – there was barely enough room for a few vehicles, a bar, some waiting people and two forlorn cows. The buses were unloaded (our furgon, aside from the corn and firearm, had carried bags of fertilizer, some hardware supplies and sacks that looked to contain cured meat) and men stood smoking. The lake was vividly green.

When the ferry came, it didn’t seem that it could possibly be big enough for us all, but it turns out it was only about two-thirds full. Bags, boxes and sacks were piled against the gunwales (and the cows were left on land) Everyone aboard knew everyone else, they were all neighbors. One old woman held court in the middle of the rows of seats. Wearing a white kerchief over her hair, she spent time talking and laughing with all the young people on board; they took turns visiting with her, receiving kisses on the cheek and pats on the head.
As desolate as the lake seems, its shores are actually inhabited by a few hardy families. Clinging to the cliff-like sides of the mountains are tiny farms, not much more than hovels with a few square feet of plowed earth and a handful of goats. These people, almost totally cut off from the world around them, rely on boats to get anywhere and on the ferry to bring them any supplies or mail. The passengers aboard the Dragoba were mostly going home – we made a lot of stops at tiny landings, not much more than a few rocks, so that people could jump ashore or collect packages. One woman was met at the bottom of a waterfall by her son (who was about five or six). Together they scampered up a trail that looked impossibly steep – the two of them moved like mountain goats, jumping from foothold to foothold. They must have lived quite high up, we couldn’t see where their house was.
The forty kilometers take about three hours to navigate. The ship goes slowly, the way is twisting and narrow. Mountains like these offer little. They’re not more than walls. A way through was made by the river, and all the dam has done is widen this path a little. We moved as though down a hallway, taking turns when they came. The vistas were ever-changing and tightly focused. Shore was never further than a few hundred yards on either side. The others on board had seen it before and barely looked out the window.

A few times, some fishing boat or other would pull up alongside. One young man motored alongside us for about half an hour, communicating with the pilot and his brother with hand signals. Before he turned his boat off into a cove, the first mate tossed him an energy drink from their cooler.

These two men raced to a small landing so that they could get on board. After tying their little aluminum craft to a bush, they lifted the outboard motor onto deck and swung up after it. Our pink-clad crewmember greeted them with hugs and questions. They shared a lunch together in the back row of bus-seats.

By the time we got to the end, the sky had lightened a little. It had rained for some time on the trip, but it had cleared again. The remaining passengers took their things from the deck and said their goodbyes. It was a perfect voyage, the kind of traveling that makes you forget about the destination, casting the time between place as the leading experience. We got off gladly but would have taken the trip again if given the chance – when we left the north the boat wasn’t running. It had rained too much, the water was too high.

A woman we met in Tirana, Zhujeta, had told us that there were once two boats, but that one of them had “sanked.” Luckily, it seems that both are operational and floating.

The Bright Spots

Last night, we had a date with Malvin, a twenty-one year old biotechnology student who waits tables on the weekend. That's how we met him, on our first night in town. He invited us out for some sightseeing and drinks. "This is my favorite place," he said of Sky Club, a revolving bar atop a skyscraper, from where this picture was taken. The rain had stopped halfway through our whirlwind tour of the city's most important buildings and lightning slashed across the clear, cobalt sky as we discussed everything we'd seen over drinks. "Nothing is built by us," Malvin explained with regret and a hint of anger. "The Russians built this, the Italians built that." When he pointed at a whimsical multi-level structure in Youth Park which houses bowling, billiards, a cafe and a casino, he shook his head with a smile he said, "the Chinese!"
He hadn't taken us to the cluster of Albanian-built structures in Skanderbeg Square (above, Skanderbeg on his horse, the miraculously surviving 18th century Et'hem Bey mosque and the historic clock tower). So, we asked about its newest addition, looming large from behind and visible from most parts of the cities. "That is Albanian," he conceded. "It will be the tallest building in Tirana," he said with a contented smile, then added - with his excellent storyteller's pacing - "in 20-25 years, maybe." The builders have run out of money. I wanted to tell him that the museums and government buildings and construction projects are not the parts of Tirana that a visitor would go home remembering - something that I believe to be true. But he was speaking to something deeper about his city and mentioning the tourist impression felt trivial and beside the point.The fact remains that it took an Albanian's stroke of genius (and about a million strokes of the brush) to give Tirana its signature look. In 2000, Mayor Edi Rama - a former painter and Minister of Culture - decided to spruce things up a bit and commissioned bright, patterned paint jobs on many of the communist-era apartment blocks. Sometimes abstract, sometimes geometric, art covers the Painted Buildings of Tirana.
The insides weren't renovated and Rama's critics argued that superficial changes weren't what was most important. But it's pretty amazing what a fresh coat of paint will do. Rama remained mayor for three terms and is now the leader of the Socialist Party of Albania, of which Malvin is a card carrying member. A red business card was removed from his wallet and shown proudly to us, his name written on the back.
I know that its all just a facade - literally - but the bold colors struck me as such a bold decision. Anti-conformity, anti-uniformity, anti-dreariness. Anti-ugliness! For a country that was Communist for 47 years. That period of its life saw the demolition of almost every beautiful historic building in Tirana, the razing of religious buildings and re design of Skanderberg Square. Obviously, the statues of Stalin et. al came down with Communism's fall, but those big, concrete apartment blocks still got the message across. Imagine how terrible this view over Tirana would look without the color? What a blight the buildings would be against such a spectacular natural backdrop.
This is our favorite building, decorated with 'hanging laundry,' made more awesome by the actual laundry hanging around.
Sure, there are a number of people that felt the new look was its own eyesore. Many complained that it made the city look like a circus. Recognizing that these buildings have been fading in the sunlight for a decade or so and are still pretty darn bright, I can see their point. But I keep thinking about what Malvin said and thinking about Rama the artist-mayor signing Albania's name on the skyline canvas in stripes and squiggles and diamonds.
Other Albanian touches around the city include busts of modern-day heroes including this man (whose hair alone is worthy of tribute) and Mother Theresa, possibly the most famous Albanian of all. The man-made lake has seen better days, but the parks are leafy and beautiful. These things may not be the most 'important' landmarks, but they are certainly the most intriguing.
Then, there's the Pyramid. Malvin had us guess what we thought the monument was built for and we mumbled some answer or another. "It is like the other Pyramids. It is for a tomb." The Pyramid was built by former Prime Minister Enver Hoxha, lovingly referred to as "our dictator." "I was not alive when he died in 1985," our winsome new friend said solemnly, "but my parents said it was like the country had no breath. Like there was no sun." Hoxha was interred in the Pyramid for only a short while and then moved elsewhere, Malvin explained. "They will tear it down next year."

First Impressions: Tirana

Sometimes, it's difficult to start in a city. There are the plus sides: a more gradual immersion into our new language, transportation options for moving on and around the country, helpful hostel hosts who make figuring out the next step a little easier. But the urban sensory overload often leaves us a little dumbstruck when we've just arrived somewhere. We wind up walking around and making the simplest observations. "Gee, there sure are a lot of coffin shops here." Above, a man looks at death notices posted outside of a funeral home.

There are also a lot of vegetable stands, eclipsed only by clothing stores and cafes. The city runs at a steady bustle. Even on Sunday morning, people woke up and went about their business. The lines of vendors are punctuated by small grill or hot plate stands, providing the sellers with grilled minced meat sausages and soup throughout the day. The Central Food Market still shows some sign of life well after dark - its skeleton frame flanked by bulb-lit piles of carrots and pickles still for sale.

There are also a lot of black, leather jackets and motorbikes. Albania's population is young - it has a median age of 28.9 - and you definitely feel a strong youth presence in Tirana. Teenage boys have sculpted hair and good posture. Teenage girls hold hands with each other as they walk, their long hair hanging all the way down their backs or piled up in a bun atop their heads. Self portraits are taken with cell phones on Saturday morning. Sunday, they join their parents for late brunch up on Mount Dajti - trading in high tops for high heels and dress shoes. We took the cable car up to join in the brunch fun. On our way down, after soaring over farms and waterfalls, we heard several bursts of gunfire.
Dogs lay around, men sell loose cigarettes, sports betting cafes are full night and day. The buses are packed, bicycles are plentiful and there's just not enough room for all the trash. Then, behind it all you have rainbow bright buildings and the mountainous landscape. There's just too much to notice, too many interactions to take in. Even with all the rain, the city has been at a steady bustle. An old woman sold us an umbrella, upping the price as she quoted it with her fingers. The handle would fall off later that day.
Knee-high Roma boys tug at my shirt sleeve or circle so closely that we almost trip over them as their pregnant relatives beg in the middle of a dangerous intersection. A man stumbled out of a betting cafe to declare, "Two euros!" when he saw us snapping photos of the bizarre, foreign owl in a cage outside. When I made a show of deleting it, he slapped me on the back and grinned as if to say, "I didn't really mean it, silly!" And, you know what, I kind of believe him. People here have been extremely nice. Things are just complicated sometimes.

The city is dynamic, that's for sure. But the high octane energy we feel seems to run through everyone else with ease. Even with all of this going on, overlapping, people exude a sense of calm. This is just life. A life, for which, a good number of dapper dans still dress up for in the morning.

Head First Into Albania

The best part of the lamb, to an Albanian, is the head. Called kokë qengji, lamb's head is what's served to the guest of honor, or to the most important man at the table. Here, spit roasted alongside golden chickens, the heads spin over charcoal. They are the whole thing, save the ears - eyes, cheek, tongue, teeth, nose, gums, brains and skull. Pinched, drawn out faces and snaggly underbites, wide-set eyes, streamlined noses - they look, in this state, like something aquatic rather than citizens of the pasture.

On our first night in Tirana we first saw them. On our second day we saw more of them and began to be really intrigued. Today, our third in Albania, I decided to try it.
There's a corner of Tirana, on Rruga Shenasi Dishnica and Avni Rustemi Square, where four or five little rotisserie joints crowd together, all selling chicken and lamb heads and not much else. The takeout customers seem to prefer the chicken, but the men (they are all men, as far as we could tell) who sit inside get the kokë qengji. Some of them drink raki with it, some have Korça beer, everyone gets a pile of sliced bread. At the establishment we visited - without an apparent name - the smell of roasting meat wafted in through the open door and a man with one hand served us proudly.

This diner, sitting at one of the four tables, was enthusiastic about having his picture taken.
The central market is just up the street, and here the meat is presented a little more gruesomely. The butcher's hall is small and wasn't very busy when we visited - there were many more people buying vegetables and squatting around the tobacco vendor than in with the meat - but there were plenty of wide, ovine eyes and lolling tongues. We were perplexed by the left-on eyebrows that graced many of the faces. They seemed to have been saved only for comic effect, to give the grimaces a hint of ghastly surprise.
The one-handed proprietor shooed a man away from one of the tables so that we could sit down. At a table across from us, under old pictures of soccer squads and strings of fake peppers, four customers sat with the wreckage of their meals before them. They had picked the bones down to white, crunched up every bit of cartilage and left impressively small piles on their plates. I began to be concerned - how much skill would this dissection take? How does one pick apart a head?
It turns out that it's more a matter of persistence than know-how. There's not a lot of non-bone that can't be eaten, but there's precious little in any one place. My kokë qengji arrived already split in two, which was helpful. Crisped, chewy and greasy, the cheeks were the most accessible - and probably the best - part of the whole endeavor. The brain was curious mostly for its deep lamb flavor - sort of like a very soft piece of liver. Tender, fatty meat hid in the crevices above the palate and behind the eyes. There was firmer stuff (still very succulent) around the back of the jaw. Unfortunately, roasting doesn't seem to treat the tongue well - it was dry and tough.

In all, a very tasty experience. The other patrons seemed pleased with how clean I'd left the skull, which made me proud. The proprietor cheerfully tucked the bill into the bread basket. One kokë qengji, one salad, one large beer and one bottle of water: 580 LEK. I left 700, which is about seven dollars. Not bad for the best part of the lamb.

CRF: Czech Republic

"CRF" is not a crime show you've never heard of, it stands for "Cutting Room Floor." Below are some of our favorite pics that never made the blog. We figured we'd reminisce a little while we vacation "off map." (Back on the trail April 14th).

The Czech Republic is one of the more impossibly romanticized countries we’ve been to – everyone thinks they know something about it, but very few tourists visit the countryside outside of Prague. It’s alternately rough and glossy, with vast green spaces and prettily painted towns. We camped by this lake, called Lipno, for a while. Most of the campground was empty, but a small cluster of permanent residents lived together in much-extended mobile homes. They played music at night and the men went out fishing in the mornings and evenings. It was very peaceful. Our license plate got stolen.
This was in the vast museum-church complex in Olomoac – a few cupids hanging on a golden chain.
Something we don’t often show on the blog – normally, whenever we eat a strange or local candy or sweet, we take a picture of it. Who knows, now, what this Fidorka tasted like? It was probably mint, but that recollection may be influenced by the green background. We do remember that the blue Fidorka was the best, filled with coconut.
Prague is certainly beautiful, but was also awash in the full rush of tourism that taints the early summer months. The brooding, bohemian city of reputation is hardly visible anymore. There were more American tourists per local than anywhere else, it seemed.
This little icon was affixed to the wall of an old wooden church, preserved in a skansen in the town of Rožnov pod Radhoštĕm.
The second city of the Czech Republic is Olomoac, capital of Moravia, far off in the east of the country. The Czech student population makes it somewhat more interesting than Prague, and one can carouse more easily and cheaply (if that’s the point).
This was a market square, sans produce.
We stumbled upon a country fair in the town of Štramberk. This woman was selling spices. There were monkeys doing tricks and lots of frying foods. It was a confusing, crowded mix of carnival barkers and wide-eyed Czech farmers – a cascade of noise down the main street.
The pretty, carp-pond and lily pad town of Telč, where we explored a terrific old pile of a manor house. Unfortunately, they didn’t allow pictures – so we couldn’t include it on the blog.
Schoolchildren running back to their lessons.
An old stove and wooden paneling in Olomoac.
We spent a few nights at a very bizarre, much neglected campground near Rožnov pod Radhoštĕm. Our tent was nearby to the fence around the place, and not so far away from a little bar/café. In the summer evening air, a group of men used to sit and play the guitar, singing American songs translated (we think) into Czech. One night, a group of young school children were staying there – this was part of the remains of their dinner, cooked in the faded grandeur of an old canteen.

Read all Czech posts, including a few about castles, one about the original Budweiser (and a beer named "Merlin"), greasy food, greasy fish and "the prettiest town in central Europe."